Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Ten years ago acclaimed actor Johny Depp decided to completely do away with the entire pirate cliché and put his own personal spin on a classic archetype.  Channeling Keith Richards and Pepe Le’ Pue he created legendary pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, a character so unique and so interesting that it turned an overused stereotype into a classic movie character and has become one of the most influential (if not one of the most important) characters in the history of film. Although the two sequels may have floundered compared to the genre-bending first film they did contain several key moments and scenes that were flat out brilliant, but none of them could compare to Depp’s ingenious interpretation of Captain Jack. So… does Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides stack up to the original film, or flounder like the disappointing sequels?

I hate to say it, but it doesn’t even compare to the lame sequels. Despite a talented cast, director and writer the film comes off as being over-produced, underwhelming, and hastily written. Johny Depp and Geoffrey Rush can only do so much with this script, and while they do manage to drive the plot forward to the best of their abilities even they can’t make this noisy mess of a story work. How could they screw this up so badly? Where do we begin on our doomed journey to the Fountain of Youth?

The biggest and most glaring problem with the film is tension, or should I say, the absolute lack of tension throughout the entire freaking movie. Nothing is at stake during this adventure and nothing is presented to the audience to make us care about the overall outcome of the events We are treated to beautiful scenery and amazing visuals, but without anything to drive the plot forward or any consequences to make us care about the journey it is nothing but a two hour photo session. Creating stakes isn’t hard to do, in fact it’s so easy that it’s almost like an equation in a film with a simple line of dialogue such as “If we don’t ___________, then ___________ is going to __________”. A story without tension is one of the biggest travesties you could commit when writing an adventure story, because without any tension surrounding the overall outcome of a struggle even the most brilliant set pieces and action scenes amount to nothing at all because quite simply… there are no stakes.

Now I’d like to compare the absolute lack of stakes in this film to my favorite all time episode of Doctor Who entitled “Let’s Kill Hitler”. The episode revolves around the Doctor trying to not only rescue Rory and Amy from a renegade sentient robot, but also trying to redeem River Song and convert her from a hired killer into the strong, independent hero she would eventually become. As if this isn’t already enough for one person to deal with, add to this dilemma the fact that the Doctor has been poisoned, and he only has a limited amount of time before he dies in the middle of his desperate mission. The entire episode is so chock full of beautiful and meaningful moments of discovery from each character that entire character arcs could be better explored in this one episode than most epic film franchises have in an entire trilogy. But… the most important thing about this episode in relation to this article is that within fifteen minutes this episode effectively establishes incredibly crucial stakes, and several of them.

1.      If the Doctor dies before getting River to save them, then Rory and Amy will die.

2.      If Rory and Amy can’t get the council to redact their judgment, River will die.

3.      If River doesn’t realize the error of her ways, the Doctor will die.

These conflicts help make all of the desperate situations in the show that much more desperate as the time ticks away. The Doctor is slowly dying an agonizing death,  River is facing disillusionment and regret at the choices she has made during her lifetime, and Amy and Rory are fighting off a swarm of killer robots while trying to convince a judicial council that they have made the wrong decision about the judgment they have passed. The high stakes of this episode transform every single act in the episode into a life or death moment, I mean the Doctor can barely crawl to the Tardis in some scenes as he attempts to save Amy and Rory, and he realizes that if he fails to convince River to renounce her ways then Amy and Rory are as good as dead.

Now sure, for a show that deals with potentially universe destroying problems on a weekly basis the potential loss of four lives aren’t exactly devastating, but the point is that stakes are simple to incorporate into any setting in a story. In Doctor Who they were able to establish these stakes simply, organically, and quickly without resorting to a clichéd doomsday line like “If we don’t ______ within the next _______, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it!”. And even though this line may be clichéd I have no problem with something THAT simple in a film compared to the nothingness of POTC: OST. Pretty much any film you can think of that had a lot of tension (which is a NECESSITY in an action film) had something at stake. Indy and friends in Raiders of the Lost Ark were chasing the Ark because if the Third Reich found out how to use its’ power they would become invincible, if Vader was victorious in Empire Strikes Back then the Rebellion would have lost its’ final hope in defeating the Empire, if Theo didn’t get the baby to The Human Project in Children of Men then the world would never figure out how to cure the worldwide sterilization, and if Andy didn’t get out of Shawshank then the warden would get away with murder, embezzling, and extortion.

Now using the information you just read, what were the stakes in Pirates of the Caribbean? What would have happened to any of the characters, ANY of them, if they had not succeeded in their crusade? Blackbeard wasn’t dying of old age, Angelica wasn’t dying of scurvy, Jack Sparrow wasn’t dying of being way too awesome, no one had anything to lose if they hadn’t found the fountain. In fact there’s one scene where the Spanish destroy the fountain for no apparent reason and everyone just sort of stands around for a few minutes with a “Gee, now what do we do?” look on their faces. Yeah, sure, some stuff happens very late in the film which makes the fountain much more important to some wounded characters, but the point is that these dummies left to find it knowing that:

1.      They were in fine health and not mortally ill

2.      The fountain only extended life proportionally, it didn’t make you live forever

3.      The journey to the fountain was very dangerous and a lot of people would probably be killed

A lack of stakes is such a travesty against a story that this alone would have been enough for me to turn people off from seeing it, but sadly this is not the only problem. There are a lot of scenes just sort of shoved into this movie that don’t feel like they belong, and to make it worse these scenes assault the eyes and ears with overly produced scenes and overly loud action pieces. This tactic of filming action scenes happened non-stop in the second and third movie, but it wasn’t as irritating in those films because they primarily dealt with legends of the sea with every action scene. Whenever there was action happening on screen there was usually a legend like Davy Jones, tribal rituals, shipwreck graveyards, the Charybdis, Aztec gold, and mythical monsters like the Kraken attached to the action scene to give it levity and that sort of “Legends of the Sea” feel to it. In this film there is one action scene involving mermaids which is kind of mediocre, but for the most part there isn’t any levity or meaning to these over the top action scenes since there is never really anything hanging in the balance, and at this point it just seems really, really old hat.

This is really a shame since there are quite a few things in the film that really worked quite well for the film, most notably (no surprise here) Johny Depp reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp has never shied from the idea of proclaiming Jack to be his personal favorite of all his roles, and his reverence and love for the role is in full view here. He returns as Jack with a sort of childlike glee and passion that makes this a standout role even for someone with a film history as distinguished as his. On the flip side of this joyful turn in is the equally stellar Geoffrey Rush returning as Captain Hector Barbosa, brining an angry and dark but spirited portrayal to the table. The two of them have always had an outstanding chemistry between them that borders on divine, a sort of oil and vinegar chemistry, and they play off of each other as well and believably as bickering siblings.

A talented supporting cast helps bring life to the characters of the film (the one bright spot of the movie), but sadly the real waste of the movie is the always amazing (and one of my favorite actors) Ian McShane as Blackbeard. It’s not that he’s bad, in fact quite the opposite, he is so freaking good in his role (channeling all of his Deadwood Al Swearingen angry greatness) that I couldn’t wait to see him on screen as soon as he walked off. He exudes such a quiet menace and dismissive attitude towards everything around his that I was riveted to my seat. In every scene his pure, unchecked disdain towards every single person around him is palpable, as if every person around him is nothing but a waste of his time. It could almost be confused as boredom, but the brilliant hatred he seeps off of himself in each scene is so cool that I always wonder why he isn’t in every movie ever made.

And sadly, that’s the problem he has in this film, lack of influence. The first time he walks out on deck and shows what he’s capable of is awesome, but after that he’s barely in the movie! When he does have a scene it typically consists of him speaking a handful of lines, exits screen left, and then we are McShane-less again for about ten or fifteen minutes. How are we supposed to fear and hate a protagonist who barely has any screen time? It’s kind of hard to fear a villain when all of his coolest stories are actually told to us by other characters instead of shown to us.

There are a bunch of other things wrong with film, but they don’t measure up to the problems I already listed. Weak, if not just weird, writing, bad cinematography, poor, uneven pacing, countless anachronisms (flamethrowers for God’s sake?), and breaking my suspension of belief are some of chief complaints. Now what do I mean by “breaking my suspension of belief”? Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Whenever I watch a movie I always slip into a mode where I realize I’m watching a movie, so I should just check my knowledge of physics, luck, and human strength at the door, but at a couple of points in the movie this film just went so far that it surpassed suspension of belief and just plain didn’t make sense.

For example, I watch a film like Raiders of the Lost Ark and I can get behind the idea of Indy getting dragged behind a car, or wrapping his whip around a branch and swinging from it, because they are things the body is capable of. Sure they might be things that you could only do once in a blue moon (like making your whip do that), or things that only a person in peak physical condition can do (Like surviving some of those stunts), but they are possible under the right circumstances. Furthermore, after watching Indy getting dragged for like half a mile behind that supply truck we are treated to a scene of Indy in bed, writhing in pain, tending his wounds, and so tired that he even falls asleep despite the prospect of sex. We see the consequences of those actions, and even elaborate, impossible events seem much more possible with these scenes.

On the other hand, Pirates of the Caribbean characters seemingly do the impossible without any regards to physical limits or physics in general. At one point Jack stands on top a coconut tree and pulls a second tree back with a rope to a forty-five degree angle using nothing but his arms. There’s no reason, no explanation for how a hundred and sixty pound average guy can do this, no lead up, he just does the impossible without the faintest of reasons. Even stranger is the fact that even if you were bitten by a radioactive spider and you somehow could do that, he’s standing on top of another tree as he does this without being flung from it like a slingshot. There’s no reason this should happen, and it happens a lot in this film. There’s a swordfight on a rocking ship teetering over the edge of a cliff, and whenever one side weighs more it shifts to that side. This is an interesting and semi-original idea for an action scene, but during the whole fight the angles they are moving at and the weight distribution of the ship are all wrong! All the treasure on the ship shifts to the side going over the edge, but then Jack throws a book to the other side and suddenly everything is even again? I know it’s a small complaint and I know it’s just a movie, but these scenes really jar me out of the film.

It’s just sad to see the slow spin down the toilet bowl of a film franchise that started out as something so original and so promising. Although sporting a promising premise, a talented cast, and a beautiful locale, it still appears that this franchise has finally… run aground (groan).

5 out of 10